Marc's Blog: festivals - 2 Day Dreamstate SF Back at Bill Graham

We're back baby, back at Bill Graham after our last 2 Day Dreamstate at Bill Graham in San Francisco 8 years ago. Last year we had a 2 Day Event at Cow Palace

Like each time, we are very grateful for our Trancefamily SF reunion

Yes!

So last year, Dreamstate SF was a Cow Palace with 2 rooms until 03:00. The first obvious question, is which was best? Honestly mainstage was good at both, but Bill Graham definitely had better lasers, maybe because of Gareth :) As for the 2 stages vs 1, I'll be honest that mainstage last year had a fair amount of music that was not my favorite, including Eric Prydz/Pryda which I've never really enjoyed, and some DJs that sounded more like techno than trance to me. So last year, I spent a lot more time at the smaller Vision stage for my favorite trance sounds. Given that, I was delighted to only have one stage this year that was mostly music I enjoyed and on a much better stage. Also, it's kind of nice not to have to move stages and occasionally have to worry about set conflicts ;)
The one downside of Bill Graham was what I assume was an earlier curfew of 01:00 (Cow Palace last year ended at 03:00 instead of 01:00)

Did I mention that we got a few extra lasers likely thanks to Gareth? :)

Day 1

Since this year ended at 01:00, we started at 17:00 for 8h of trance:

Olly James

Nilsix

Jeffrey Sutorius

The absolute highlight of the day was Ferry Corsten playing a new Gouryella. Strangely he was not the last to play, which was weird as his set was guaranteed to be the best, and he sure delivered. It was another religious experience that surpassed the previous ones I had seen:

and yes, I caught the backwards easter egg :)

This really was the best set of the night by far, not that the other ones were bad, but this one was that good. I even caught the easter egg (clickme)

I did record the full set, although it wasn't with my best camera, apologies for this, but the music is still there:

W&W was last, but Ferry was a tough act to follow:

And that was it for Day 1. Here is the video summary:

I'm not sure what was going on after party-wise, nothing major I think, but given that I had just gotten back from 4 days ASOT, I was happy to get some rest to be there bright and early for day 2 :)

Day 2

our local TFSF boy, Sony opened day 2 again

TFSF represent!

Talla 2XLC was next, great set, great to see him again after just one week in Rotterdam :)

then Roman Messer, I also had seen just a week prior

Aly and Fila

Aly and Fila's full set:

Paul Van Dyk

Paul Van Dyk's full set:

And the night ended with Gareth, with muchos lasers, beautiful:

Yes, I have Gareth's full set here, enjoy:

Gareth was a great ending to day 2, here is a summary:

People

Of course I'm biased, but having just come back from ASOT, the crowds at Dreamstate events are much more festive:

A few pictures for fun as always:

Dave Dresden came to visit :)

shout out to the ground control teams, thank you

my heroes

and Gareth!

Thoughts/Conclusions

Artist-wise, it was likely a lower budget event than last year, only one stage, no Armin, no Pryda. But guess what? Honestly Pryda is not my thing, and while I do remember that Armin at least played trance at DS (which he did not at ASOT for the most part), he must not have been cheap. This is where I personally don't mind if we have DJs that don't cost as much and play music I enjoy just as much, if not more.

This time around it was a simpler event with single room, but we still had plenty of DJs and loads of fun without (I assume) spending as much money on the DJs as last year, which also left more money for the visuals, and they were definitely really good this year. I do not have access to any numbers like attendance or financials, but my guess is that this year the crowd was more trance lovers focussed, and that the event still made money, which of course is essential for us having more in the future.

The Artists we had played either mostly trance, or a reasonable mix of trance and other genres that I didn't find too hurtful to the ear :) (I did notice that both Fadi and PvD went a bit harder trance than they usually do, at the edge of techno at times).

Gouryella and Gareth's show both topped the best sets of last year as far as I'm concerned, so this was great!

In summary, we had a fantastic time, honestly I think it was a great combination of venue and artists. After Dreamstate Socal, this is the best Dreamstate Event in the world :)

Links

Video with all IG stories together